Canada
by Axis-13
Summary: Because a stranger's comfort is all it takes to keep you from dying when you really don't want to die. AU. OC.


'_Look, Krysten, I'm sorry, but I really don't think this is going to work. And honestly, it's not you. Really. I'm just going through some things and I'd rather not…'_

Krysten crumpled the letter in her hand. She'd read it a hundred times since Jason had knocked on her door and handed it to her with a definite awkwardness. If she tried, Krysten probably could have recited every word written in the break-up letter. Looking at it, it wasn't even really a letter. It was just a silly little note. A note that she promptly threw into the lake in front of her.

The note sat tauntingly on the surface of the frozen lake. Krysten almost wanted to get up and push it down into the water except that would have required her to get up and move. She considered herself in no position to move, heart broken and half starved and frozen to death. So she settled for intense glaring and shivering like mad. It almost reminded her of the time her parents had taken her out on vacation to Russia just to tell her they were getting a divorce and she tried to freeze herself to death by laying in the snow in nothing but shorts and a tank top. Unsurprisingly, sitting in the snow in a light sweater, jeans, and hiking boots induced many of the same things: intense shivering, tense muscles, and finger tips so cold they hurt. But at least nobody would find her like they had in Russia. She wasn't as far from her home as she could get but she was far enough and in some place where nobody would ever think to look for her: Canada.

Krysten had chosen Canada to run away to because nobody ever though of Canada. She new next to nothing about Canada except that it was very cold and that since 9/11 you needed a passport to cross between the America and Canada.

Sitting in the snow and shivering, Krysten wondered why Canada was never really noticed. She hadn't really had a chance to sit down and look around or sit and have a meal in some nice restaurant because she'd wasted all her money trying to actually get to Canada in the first place, but Krysten had decided that she actually liked Canada. Everyone she'd come into contact with had been nice and the place had very decidedly nice scenery. All in all, she decided, it would be a nice place to die.

Caught in a bout of shivering, Krysten didn't hear the person coming up behind her until they tapped her on the shoulder. A soft, boyish voice asked, "Um, excuse me, miss, what are you doing out here?"

Krysten didn't move. She didn't feel like talking either but found herself saying, "I'm trying to freeze to death."

Whoever the person was sat down next to her, and if he was alarmed, he didn't show it. "Why would you want to do that?"

Krysten wondered if maybe she should just ignore him but decided against it. She was lonely. "Because my parents are in the middle of a divorce and my boyfriend of four, almost five years, just dumped me. For his best friend. Who's a guy."

For a while the stranger said nothing. "Have you ever talked to anyone? About anything?"

Krysten, who'd resolved to not moving for anything, found herself shaking her head. "There's no one to talk to. My mom acts like she hates me, my father has visiting rights that he never takes advantage of, and my ex and I share all the same friends. There's no one."

"So you ran away?" the stranger asked.

Almost absently, Krysten wondered why this person wasn't panicking, why they weren't trying to convince her no to kill herself. "Yeah. We took a vacation to Russia. I tried to freeze myself over there but they found me."

"Did you ever think that maybe you shouldn't kill yourself?" he asked. "That maybe people only act certain ways because they care about you?"

Finally, Krysten turned to look at the person trying to console her. It was a boy who looked slightly older than her, collage freshman, maybe. He was cute too, with wavy, silky looking blond hair that looked almost orange at the tips, cream colored skin, and bright, striking, almost unearthly violet eyes. He was wearing glasses, too, but she didn't notice that. Or the fact the he was holding a live polar bear on his lap. She couldn't help it. The first words out of her mouth were, "Your eyes are violet. I've never met anybody with purple eyes before."

The stranger blushed a bit and clutched the bear a bit tighter. "Your eyes are green," he pointed out almost shyly.

Krysten shrugged. "Green eyes are normal."

The boy looked like he didn't know what to say. Finally, he asked, "What's you're name?"

Krysten blinked. In all the time she'd spent talking to him they'd never exchanged name. She found it almost curious that names hadn't seemed to matter. "Krysten. Krysten Evers. And you?"

"I'm M-Matthew Williams," he said softly.

"Williams," Krysten hummed. "Like Haley Williams from Paramore."

There was a pause in the conversation. Not that Krysten minded. That was how she liked things. Nice and quiet.

"Um, would you let me take you home?"

The question was so abrupt, so sudden that Krysten actually jerked back. She stared at Matthew until he flushed a dark red and started to talk again. She cut him off quickly. "_What?_"

"I w-was just w-wondering if maybe you'd let me take you back to your house," the blond whispered weakly, adjusting his glasses and clutching his bear.

"_Why?_"

"B-Because nobody deserved to die before their time," Matthew said mournfully as if Krysten were already dead.

"Wh-What do you care? We-We don't know each other. Well, you hardly know me, but I don't know you," Krysten snapped not quite sure if she should be annoyed or happy that someone, anyone, cared.

"Well… Everyone ignores me. All my friends and family. My brother enemies always mistake me for him and beat me all the time. And nobody notices. No one," Matthew said softly.

Krysten only stared. There was emotion, an unfamiliar one that felt almost like a stomach ache, pooling in her stomach. She leaned forward, strands of black fell in to her line of vision, and asked, "What did you come out here for?"

Matthew smiled almost guiltily. He looked over at the frozen lake. "To drown myself."

She could name the feeling now. It was dread. She didn't want this sweet, kind boy to _kill_ himself. At a loss for word, she managed to get out, "But…you _can't_."

"You were going to kill yourself," Matthew pointed out not unkindly.

"But…you're _nice_," Krysten whispered feeling light-headed. Maybe the shock of the cold was finally getting to her.

Matthew looked at her. "You think I'm nice? Why?"

Krysten trembled although she wasn't entirely sure if it was from the cold. "I… I dunno. You listened to me… You…don't want me to kill myself and you don't know me."

Matthew sighed and they sat in silence for a while. And suddenly Krysten was enveloped in something warm as Matthew wrapped her in his coat and pulled her up. Krysten, who'd been sitting for hours, was shaky on her legs and would have fallen over had Matthew not wrapped an arm around her shoulder. They stood in silence for a moment before Matthew spoke.

"If y-you let me take you h-home, if you promise…not to kill yourself…" Matthew started. His face was crimson and he was clutching Krysten the way she'd imagined he clung to the bear. "If you let me take you home and you _promise_ not to kill yourself…I-I won't kill myself either."

Krysten shook against Matthew. How could someone promise their life to a stranger like that? Someone who didn't want to die that bad, Krysten supposed. And, really, she didn't want to die that bad either, despite all the things she did to make it happen. Oddly but not, Krysten found herself nodding her head. "Okay. Okay. I don't see how you're going to _take_ me home though. I live in California."

Matthew shrugged, and only said, "I can pay for you to take a train."

"You know that wouldn't really be taking me home," Krysten whispered through chattering teeth.

"Still, you'd get home, right?" Matthew asked.

Krysten nodded. Neither Krysten nor Matthew felt like moving so they stood in silence until the sun began to dip low in the sky.

Later at the train station Matthew slipped a piece of paper into Krysten's hand. It was a paper that she didn't look at until she was back in her warm Californian home and in bed, a paper that she didn't look at until her family and friends, Jason included, had stopped fussing over her. Even then, she only looked at the paper in the light of the moon while lying in bed. It wasn't even a note, not really. It was a Matthew's full name, and what Krysten supposed where his cell phone number and email. And so she slept with the paper that wasn't quite a note clutched to her chest and dreamed of what Matthew would do tomorrow and the next day and the next. She supposed she was quiet glad that neither of the had wanted to die that bad. But mostly she was glad she'd gone to Canada.

* * *

And this is the result of my inability to sleep and my complete and total adoration of Canada, the character and the real place although I've never actually been there. And this is not a self-inset. Krysten Evers is the love interest of the main character of the novel I'm trying to write. Her name just so happens to be the one I picked to use as my pen name. And it kind of stuck, so I don't really wanna change it.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the story, however lame it was. And please review, it would be much appreciated.

Ciao.


End file.
